Wednesday, July 7, 2010

The Streak Ends

So – everything must come to an end sometime, and my “Execute The Plan” streak came to a screeching halt on Sunday.

But, I do have to report that Saturday was as good a run as I’ve had in a while. Seventeen miles on the plan. Seventeen miles executed on the trails in Aliso-Wood Canyon Regional Park here in Orange County.

A couple of new things really helped spell success on this run:

Changed my fueling regimen: Up to now, I’ve been relying on gels as my primary source of fuel, and I’ve pretty much ignored fuel on my long runs. Saturday I mixed up an handheld of Ultrafuel (maltodextrin) and tested it on my run. It worked quite well.

Changed my electrolytes: For a while now I kind of suspected that the cramping and fatigue that I usually suffer is a sodium issue. I sweat. Like buckets. And that means that I’m probably (definitely) losing a lot of sodium in the process. I have been using Endurolytes as my electrolyte replacement, but each tablet only provides 85mg of sodium. After reading a great blog post by Aron, I thought it might be high time to try a different electrolyte replacement tablet. I took two of these guys per hour (at 285 mg of sodium each) and they seemed to do the trick:

The bottom line was I finished 17 miles on the trails and felt pretty strong afterwards. It was a real confidence builder for Saturday…

Which brings us to Sunday. On the schedule was an 8 mile easy run. I woke up with a mean case of DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). My back was tired. My quads and hips ached. Heck – even my arms were sore. Everything felt so good! But, with a race coming up this Saturday, sore and fatigued muscles, and a BBQ and fireworks to celebrate the 234th birthday of the USA, I sacked the run. Sigh. I remember celebrating the bicentennial in 1976 – a year after graduating High School. Man. I’m an old fart.

So I finished out last week at 34 miles. And finished out June at 4 miles shy of 120. I feel like the cruiser has finally turned the right direction.

This week I’m going to mini taper for Saturday’s race. I was originally going to just treat the race as another training run, but I think I’m going to treat it more like a race (more on that later). So that means this week’s schedule will pan out like this:

Monday: Rest

Tuesday: Rest

Wednesday: 8 mile easy

Thursday: 4 mile easy

Friday: Rest

Saturday: Harding Hustle 30K (18 - 19 miles)

Sunday: Rest

Total for week: 30 miles or thereabouts

Then, once this week is over, it’s back to 40 miles. Per week. Without fail….

Once this week is over, then it's taper time for SF...it's a vicious cycle that we just can't stop. I've heard Meg tak about Ultra Fuel but haven't tried it; I use Perpetuem for marathons and it works really well for me. I also take a product called S!caps by Suceed, a sodium table which also has other minerals in it that we sweat out. It's all a matter of experimenting to see what works best! See you soon, Glenn!!

I hope the electrolytes continue to do the trick. When I last trained for a marathon - remind me again why I train for marathons in summer? - I added salt packets to my Gatorade because I am a bucket sweater, too.

I might have to keep that Ultra Fuel in mind. I use S-Caps, which are similar sodium content to your SaltStick as I also sweat buckets, even in the dry air! People got a lot more excited about the USA back then - the Bicentennial was awesome!